Ich bin ein

for the 10,000th time: I am Ron Silliman, I have more than a right to be Ron Silliman, I get a shitload of hit points every day, people listen to me, I am one of the most popular poetry bloggers, I have the stats to prove that I have the stats, my hit points make me awesome, welcome to my world.

reading Hanging Out with Pablo and Jennifer, by Kasey Silem Mohammad. it is an e-book published by Duration Press. I fear I'm unclear on the concept of flarf, but I think KSM utlizes that approach in writing his poetry. using online searches to develop texts (correct me if I'm wrong. the 1st piece is called "Does Your Poetry Hold Up". there's something wonderful here, in the way one feels both a collision of purpose in the poem's statements, and also an enveloping agreement. the tone varies amongst snideness, expansiveness, idiosyncrasy and non sequitur. KSM seems both satirizing and joining in. I guess I worry that the poem seems glib. satire outweighs the other tonal components, at least as I read it. I would love to hear Kasey read, for if he's half as good as I think he is, he could really be rollicking with this material. I wonder what's missing tho. is his audience supposed to nod knowingly? I would prefer not to.

James Meetze at his blog, which I will conveniently link to like a blog pro, (go here), writes briefly of a visit to Grolier Bookshop, that Cantabriggian treasure. I didn't frequent it a lot, when I had money, but I did the best I could. a long moneyless stretch ensued during which I didn't visit at all. in which time, security went up. and her ownership is just a wee bit odd and defensive about her realm. I dunno how much theft goes on there but suspect that the cost of all that security goes well to outweighing profits. it aint a fun place to shop. I was there long ago reading a piece by two NY poets (T Berrigan and, I believe), about visiting Grolier. Gordon Cairnie mentioned in the book, and there he was right over there!

Digital Cellular Phone now has a 12th section up. 265 Word pages. the megilla has reached 340 pages. converting to web page is slow for me. I hope it pleases.

further personal info

I is a poet, novelist, critic and playwright who lives in San Francisco. I has written a book of poetry, two novels, and a book of memoirs. my poems have appeared in many magazines and anthologies. I was trained in industrial design. I is the author of a senior editor at Pleiades and co-editor of Kathleen Ossip. I teaches poetry it was selected by Derek Walcott for the Best American workshops at the New School University in New York. forthcoming anthology lives in Brooklyn and teaches at The New School. including most recently, I is the author of Chain Chain Chain Phoebe Verse. I lives in New York City and a book of stories, that won the PEN Oakland award for fiction. my newest collection is out from Painted Leaf Books, and my next book will be all about editing a book of the complete stories of a late colleague and completing a new novel. I lives in New York City where I is studying my doctorate in English. my chapbook is entitled and I co-authored the chapbook published Press. Poems have recently appeared or will be appearing this winter and spring. I is the author of two books of poetry, both grew up and lives in New York City. I currently works as the Artistic Director in her chapbook. I is Associate Publisher of the editor at New School University. I is currently editing an anthology on my first poetry collection. I was a finalist for more information.

Rubbery Rant

it’s all right charm, the dead wood removed, a perfect government installed. it’s all in game, natural attack and fried clams for Cheney. it has dense to be disease, to rule with ease, and you get the point exactly. in a different world of space, where controller talk forces down, you can beam and be a heart. raid Hegel, whose cunning superpowers strode thru the attachment city, felled trees like a plan and mor to be believed. he’s a miracle of ably telling thru the seasonal churn to be. a righteous add to it alights and burns, that smokes out Cheney, that delivers proper funding, that talks a streak into Enron ideology. crust of earth difference, ploughed thru sharing, corpse in the copse, together ‘you’ and ‘I’. tunes in space, trade off mugging, and it’s sure to make a language go alone. we are berries, finally, from the systematic bush. worth it just to tell it.

speaking poli sci I should mench Kevin Magee. I admire his writing. densely political, being both an involvement with and a consideration of political writers as well as in the issues. it is serious attention to the langauge and the action, and I think that exceptionally rare. as in eloquent writers who don't match actions, or action takers who cheat the word. I don't think there is politics except at the base level of the very word, and those who misuse the word are working against. Magee periodically floats his stuff thru Poetics, where I don't think enough attention is paid. I've seen his work in Sulphur and surely it's around online I thought he had a site, but several computer crashes have taken lots of bookmarks away. I would like to read more of his work. I always want to read the works he cites, too. that's a value in Olson, as well.

Bruce Andrews' Chops

Brian Kim Stefan offers a number of nifty pdfs at his Arras site. Steve Evans' notes on Poetry are good and useful. I'm psyched by the collected political science writings of Bruce Andrew, of which tehre's quite a lot. I haven't read any yet, but I trust there's meat on the bones. I take Andrews most seriously politically of all the langpoistas, that his political stance and writing theory mesh consciously in his work. so have some poli sci

I'm fuckin' going to town with self promotion but here's a link to Peter Ganick's online pub Poethia, no longing publishing but it had its moments. I have a few things here but there are numerous good writers here. by the way, there is no cure for passive voice. life is cruel.

Bramhall has signed a scholarship to play outfield for the Rice Owls next season.

The senior pitcher struck out 87 batters and held opponents to .175 batting at the plate.

Bramhall helped lead the Tigers to a bi-district appearance against Georgetown, and Bramhall kept the Tigers alive for a Game 3 against Georgetown with a stellar performance in Game 2.

I didn't know this existed, all L=A=N=G,etc online ========. I have a thumbed and scribbled LANG Vol. 4, presumably a selection from the mag. this and Tom Beckett's 'The Difficulties' were the most help in getting LANGuAGE into me. I suppose this is ancient history for some, and aren't we all tired of the theoretical battles, and yeah yeah, some of the langpoets can be dicta heads, but still, ways of breaking down the determined way you and I busy ourselves with poetry.

vitae

I cooled born in Ohio and voltage lived in New York and Israel.
I present farm in literature with collateral concentration film and dramamine studio from creative writhing poetry and women's studies from circus.
I engrave the author of Given, a collection of pools; my permafrost have appeared in many adjutant, including the Denver Black Crazy Fence Volt American Commentary Pleiades.
I revamp bones for Rain Taxi, the Elect Pottery View and other mezzanine.
I steered the recipient of a Saltonstall individual artist's Colony and services the editorial Poetics.
Since 2001, I rushed just outside Boston and dare taught at Bentley College.

saw Spider Man 2. trying to make sense of secret identities is a waste of time, altho all the comic books did it. I find Spidey's inability to reveal himself a tiresome theme. I remember seeing Buck Owens AND the Buckaroos in the Salt Lake City airport. a stir in the crowd. ole Buck constantly removed his sunglasses to peer around then put then back on, which I took to be leave me alone plus hey look at me. superheroes might as well act like that. as in the scene in the elevator in Spidey2. luckily S2 doesn't bog in that stuff. given how the Batman series kept choosing one loser after another, it's nice to see how well Tobey Maguire fits the role. I'm deciding if I want to totally hate CGI, for it so often looks cheesy, but Spidey's romps thru the city are pretty engrossing. I love the impossible angles you get of NYC. the theatre was full of elderly women when we arrived. when we left we were alone. I spent a few seconds watching the credits to see who the grip was, but I don't think that I took so long that a herd of elderly women could rush from the theatre. I wonder if the noise and violence sent them packing early. I may wonder this for the rest of my days.

cat cornered a garden snake on the lowest shelf of a bookcase in the cellar. thought you'd like to know. such thigns don't happen every day.

here's a site that has been around but filled with texts, including classic ones like Air the Trees by Larry Eigner (who Robert Grenier brought to Franconia, lo these many, for an intimate reading). Light&Dust. A lot of good links elsewhere as well.

figured I had ought to include in my links: Alterran Poetry Assemblage and Jack Kimball's sites. my work exists at these sites, but also good work by others.

*** reminiscence dangereux ***

5 years ago I began to write... okay, not a literal truth. I broke thru constraints then, allowing me into a new territory. my dog died, see, I even watched the light go out in her eyes, and that shook me to the need. I know this all sounds sloppy eyed, but skip to the point. I developed a to hell with it that let me just write PROSE and not worry that I wasn't meeting L=A&N#G!U@A^G%E standards. my teacher long ago was Rober Grenier. this was pre-Langpo, when no one knew anything. RG was shifting towards the minimalism that we see now in his writ. contrary to possible expectations, he didn't try to inculcate me or anyone into his particular modernism. in fact he pointed me towards Koch and OHara. I felt his influence, langpo influence, Olson influence, for a long time. until I reached a point where I came into my own. I'll never have the public confidence of Jordan Davis, but I am not awed by others. I owe Grenier, and Olson, etc, but have come to my own. it is a vital feeling.

headline of the Boston Herald today is The Buck Stops Here. referring to Ken Lay, taking, so it is said, 'responsibility'. as if the old boy were taking the bullet for the common weal. I guess if he's going to go to the trouble of creating such a fiction, I should do him the honour of falling for it.

I play a lot of Free Cell, which, fortunately, is my only gaming vice. I often play before I write. in fact, Beth says, oh you're going to write when she sees me playing. it occurred to me that the game is organizational. one puts cards in place. that seems to be a good warm up to writing, tho I do it far from all the time.

do you wish to have Jordan davis' pants?

I downloaded some jam band music from here. listening to Phil and Friends. Phil Lesh touring with whoever wants to do some dates with Dead legend. I saw Phil with two members of Little Feat. a great concert, not simply nostalgia, altho there were aging hippies in proliferation. but also quite a few teens , Phish Phans likely. what I'm listening to features Steve Kinmock and Trey Anastasio on guitar, both being sweet and versatile. plus Page McConnell on piano, so it's a solid group. Phil's voice is the pits, it's just broke down something fierce. maybe you don't care about this, just thought I would mench.

inter-library loan coughed up Hegels's Logic of Science (or vice versa) and collected essays by Schopenhauer. so I have a month with these two, and it sounds exciting. I know I won't read much of them, that requiring a more steadfast use of time than I can manage, but I have already had fun scanning thru them. I dunno why philosophy rings my bell now as it didn't for so long. and I don't read poetry as I used to. I read poetry more simply for pleasure (today reading some George Herbert and Thomas Traherne). I used to read more poetry hat was 'out there'. I mean, I read Eliot because he was Eliot, not because I liked his writing, which I do not. the mechanics of poetry is less an issue for me now, since I'm such a mature writer. what compels me now as a reader is a certain energy that I cannot well describe. I just know it is useful.

apparently a lot fo people are doing google searches on 'ndoga mupesa'. don't you think you should too?

turns out I AM Tom Hanks. Steve Spielberg called, told me. we're doing another BIG (allusion to one of my earlier hits) projects. HBO already in big time. talk is, I may get another Oscar. I'll keep you all abreast. thanksfor being my fans!!!

I just finished my third time.
I absolutely trust what I am being told.
I like the quickness of the response and the warm and caring attitude expressed.
I was treated like a queen bee.

reading John Locke's Two Treatises on Government. the 1st treatise is ducks in a barrel, taking on a fundamentalist knucklehead who claims that monarchy derives from God's gift to Adam. not a worthy opponent for JL, who has the Bible better than Sir Robert. the 2nd treatise is more usefully meaty. also reading Stephen Ambrose's book on events following D-Day. war movies in my childhood meant WW2, many of which (I didn't realize then) were propaganda vehicles made when events were yet to be settled. it's still hard to process it all, the incredible scale of it in temrs of politics and in terms of human destruction. looking on the Antietam battlefield, so lovely and peaceful now, and trying to see into the ground that held... I sound sentimental but I only mean to embrace the actuality. Ambrose is sentimental. I know his scholarship is sloppy in his race to crank out another bestseller, but he presents a good enough picture. only other book of his I've read is on Lewis and Clark. which is helpful with facts, but one should just go to the Journals. anyway, I want to be Tom Hanks someday.

watched "Evil Alien Conquerors", in which two aliens attempt to conquer Earth using swords that shrank while they were beamed here. they were so earnest in their expectation of beheading every inhabitant of the planet within the next two days. if they did not then Croaker would come after them. he being a 100' tall killing machine. but of course he too suffers shrinkage during transport, tho never catches on to this fact. it was a screwy flick that managed to maintain its balance. I watch very little tv now. I used to watch a lot, always seeking the most compellingly lame product. I flinch at the thought of quality Hollywood films. tho the Hollywood films I've seen lately haven't offended me: Spiderman 1, H Potter 1, Load (sic) of the Rings (I was however annoyed quite often with LOTR, as for instance when Legolas transformed into Spidey to kill the Oliphaunt), Troy, Hidaldo. I'm not asking for much, just keep me away from two cute lawyers waking up to discovered they're MARRIED!!! or all these explosion movies I see in trailers. I'm leery of Spidey 2, but only because that wearisome shit about the sensitive superhero, Stan Lee's contribution to the comix genre.

you're probably looking for an odd link. I found it!!! Strindberg and Helium

to see your poetry
if you hope collection
sitting next to the
work of published
publication see which
is going to be
improve your necessary
poetry get your
poetry poets
in a local bookstore
some revision accepted
for one matches
your poetry best

I forget. am I supposed to edit typos out or in?

I like this site by Joel Weishaus. quite lovely, and a subtle way to use the possibilities of text online. Olson comes to mind as I read, and John Perlman's Natural History of Trees (Potes&Poets Press). please check the site out. it's going into my links. Forest Park

after exhaustive study, I have determined that the Red Sox suck. they really suck. when the Sox go good, it's fun. when they don't, I just look elsewhere for mental stim.

From The Onion:

"As the Coalition's rule draws to a close, the numbers show that we have an awful lot to be proud of," Bremer said Tuesday. "As anyone who's taken a minute and actually looked at the figures can tell you, the vast majority of Iraqis are still alive—as many as 99 percent. While 10,000 or so Iraqi civilians have been killed, pretty much everyone is not dead."

two sites I want to mention. Lanny Quarles' blog, noted to the right, or click this thing. lots of links and visuals and all sorts of stuff. another rich site, not a blog, is John Bennett's. go here for his.